


would that i

by IcarusPendragon



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Fluff, This is just pure fluff tbh, it is one of the great and simple joys in life, look sometimes i just like to listen to hozier and get all wax poetic about zutara, this is pretty much just a zutara love letter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28741074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcarusPendragon/pseuds/IcarusPendragon
Summary: she fell in love with the fire long ago
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 44





	would that i

**Author's Note:**

> hi all, i hope you enjoy the sap and i hope you don't mind that i changed the lyrics around a bit (also, lets ignore that this isn't exactly a love song). 
> 
> who knows, maybe i'll make a whole collection of hozier/zutara love poems

Katara tries to pinpoint the exact moment that she knew she loved Zuko. She can’t lay a pin in the singular moment, but she can retrace her footsteps, all of the steps that led to the man, the boy king in front of her. 

It started in the crystal catacombs under Ba Sing Se, when he opens up to her. When she realizes that they have something terrible in common. That is when she stops seeing him as just an enemy. An obstacle in their way to granting the world the peace that it so desperately needs, in that moment she realizes that the boy before her is just that, a boy. A lost and misguided and unbelievably scared and scarred boy. She thinks this is what makes his betrayal hurt so much. This is what makes it sting so badly. 

This is the spark for the fire in her soul. 

The next step is when Zuko joins their ranks and one by one they start to accept him. Toph first, as she never really had any reason to dislike him, no real reason for her not to put her trust in him and his transformation. Then with Aang as they discover the secret to firebending and life itself it seems like. Then with Sokka as he helps bring Suki back. Helps bring their father back to them. When this happens, she wants so desperately to be able to cling to her blanket of anger, to shield herself from the winds of him, to prevent those winds from breathing life into the spark in her soul, to never let the spark transform into flame. 

Then Zuko does what no one has ever done before, he lets her be angry. He lets her wear her bitterness and sadness and fury over her tragedies on her sleeve. When she realizes that she doesn’t have to pretend like she is an impenetrable fortress; when she does not have to be a constant shining beacon of unwavering hope. When she is allowed to be human. Then he offers to help her seek justice and to find closure. To make her own decisions. It is when they go to face Yon Rha that she realizes for the first time in a very long time, she is the one that is being taken care of. She has spent so much of her life mothering and being the mother that she has almost forgotten what it was like to have someone shoulder some of her burdens. To take the weight of her world and place it on their shoulders and walk with her and beside her. He doesn’t judge her. He does not try and sway her one way or the other. He is there to help her fight, to help her grieve. And when she forgives him, she casts her anger off. Like she shucks her coat off when she is finally home for the day; when she finally allows herself to rest herself by the fire. She can feel the spark, the embers in her soul turn into flame. 

The flame is fanned little by little after that. When he spars with her. When he helps her clean up after feeding their group. When he listens to her and her worries and doubts late into the night. When he makes her laugh with his terrible jokes. When he tells her stories and tales. When he never lets her rest. When he never lets her give up hope. When he shoulders more and more of her burdens and she feels herself becoming lighter and lighter until she thinks that this is what being weightless must feel like. Until she is certain that even the smallest breeze would be able to pick her up and cast her into the sun. She had always thought fire was either destructive or practical. In the same breath that it can warm their bodies on a cold day, it can burn down an entire city. It gives and it takes. It waxes and it wanes. But most of all, she realizes, it sustains. 

The flame becomes a blaze as they are hurtling through the sky, racing a second sun, racing Zuko to his destiny, to the fate of the world as they know it. When he sets aside whatever he wanted to do after the war for the sake of the world. When he agrees to do whatever it takes to usher them into the after. When Zuko had placed all of his faith and trust into her; when he asked her to be the one by his side. When she sees the power that he wields; when she sees how strong he is and has become and has always been. When she sees that Azula is aiming for her. When she sees Zuko moving in slow motion to try and stop death, her death. It is when she sees Zuko fling himself into that blinding brightness and heat of Azula’s lightning. When he catches the bolt. When every moment they have ever shared flashes before her eyes and she realizes that those moments are not enough. That she deserves more, that  _ Zuko _ deserves more. That is when Katara realizes that he has set her aflame, mind and body and soul, Katara is set ablaze with the warmth that is Zuko’s fire and light. When she is racing to him desperately, trying to breathe life back into him. When she tries to go to him and she can see him weakly reaching out. When he tries to protect her even when he is on the brink, trying to pull him back from the brink of death and perpetual darkness.  _ He has no place in the darkness _ , she thinks,  _ he is a child of the sun, the darkness should never touch him _ . But touch him it has, and it is what makes his flame burn ever warmer and brighter. 

And in the after, when the fight is over; after everyone is safe and accounted for, she does not leave him. She stays by his side, just as he always stayed by hers. When she sees the concern that knits his brow as he looks over their friends, their family. When she watches his ragged determination as he meets with ministers and officials to draw up peace treaties and withdraw troops. When he has bedside meetings with important person after important person because he is still too weak to stand on his own. She spends hours by his side, piecing his heart back together, just as he spent hours with hers. She knows that she is using pieces of her own heart to fill in the missing parts. She knows and she does it anyway. She does it because she knows that he already has it, he has held pieces of his heart in his hands for quite some time and it’s only appropriate that he has all of it. After everything. Her heart is his. 

  
  


With the roar of his fire, her heart rose to its feet. With the ashes of ash, she saw rise to the heat, and as it settled soft and sure, as pure as snow, she realized that she fell in love with the fire long ago. 

  
  



End file.
